Game On! An Industry’s Journey

1. Game On!An Industry’s Journey Vicarious Visions, Inc. Karthik Bala, CEO Guha Bala, President

2. About Vicarious Visions • A Leading developer of video games • Headquartered in Albany, NY, with 140 employees • Founded in 1994 by brothers Guha Bala and Karthik Bala • In January 2005, VV was acquired by Activision, Inc. – the second largest publisher of video games in the world • Market Success • 25 million games sold worldwide • Generated nearly $1 Billion in retail sales! • Activision • Founded in 1979 – one of the first video game publishers • Annual sales over $1.5BB US 2

3. About Vicarious Visions • Multi-platform Development – handheld and console • PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii • Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable • Strong Entertainment Brands & Partnerships • Shrek, Spider-Man, Star Wars, Transformers, Spongebob, Finding Nemo, Doom 3 and many others. • Dreamworks, Pixar, Disney, Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures, Marvel • Our People • World class creative and technical talent • Diverse skill sets and backgrounds • Programmers, artists, writers, designers, musicians, producers • Recruited from around the world • Our Code • ~20,000 lines of code in our games in 2000 • >1 Million lines of code in our games this year 3

4. Games have grown up Released in 1972 Simplistic games made from fundamentally few mechanics 4

5. Games have grown up 35 Years Later… 5

6. Niche to Mainstream 6

7. Games for every audience 7

8. Games are everywhere 8

9. The industry has grown up • Cottage industry  Large, specialized global businesses • Space Invaders • A single programmer • Distributed as a stand alone cabinets • Lines of code: ~400 lines of code; Data size: <10KB • Spider-Man Movie 3 • Team of ~300 (25% programmers, 40% artists, 20% designers, 5% audio, 10% production management) • 4+ million units distributed worldwide, with $25+MM consumer marketing spend • Lines of code: > 2 million; Data size: ~10 GB • Hobbyist talent  Specialized labor • Early games developed by simple teams of programmers and artists • Today, teams have more formally trained talent pool: programming and art training a must, and ongoing. Many have advanced degrees. • Industry that generates $35BB in total worldwide sales. In the US, $16BB  greater than movie box office receipts 9

10. Playing to win: success factors • Great games that culturally resonate • Revenue and profits heavily correlate to top few titles • A fashion driven business • Timing in the marketplace • Rigid market windows • Holiday: 60% of sales comes between October and December • Major movies releases • Shelf space and marketing committed much in advance • Low defect rate • Handheld and console games cannot be patched • Games have rigorous standards for manufacturer approval • A Talent Driven Business • Projects that offer creative and commercial impact • Quality workplace Sustainable delivery in this environment is very valuable 10

11. Opportunity knocks: 2002/2003 • CNK opportunity • Another project slipped, $50MM hole in the forecast • Customer asked us to pull in the date by 1 year and add PS2 and X-Box • In retrospect a crazy decision • Shipped on-time, Holiday 2003 to commerical success 11

12. Success paid for in blood • Burnout • Difficult work conditions • Attrition • Endemic to games industry 12

13. Opportunity to do better • Spider-Man 2 for NDS • 5 months cycle • New technology • Hardware launch • Movie-tie in (DVD launch window) • Better methodology better products, better quality of life • Software • Production • Became the #2 title for the platform in 2004 big success 13

14. Method in our madness • TSP/PSP • Initial rollout: PSP software training for programmers 2 1 week courses • External coaching for Spidey 2 NDS • Capability training • Project management • Leadership development • Upstream QA • Formation of early and mid stage QA effort 14

15. What’s worked • Launches • Team formation • Quality owners • Use of historical data for scoping 15

16. Challenges • Planning techniques favor understood development methodology • Game development is iterative and values qualitative judgment of completion • Rework for purpose of polish increases game quality. Traditional TSP correlates rework with defects. • EV often confounded by iteration • Training methodology tailored for programmers: we are in a software business, but the techniques need to be accessible for non-software people • Makes buy-in more challenging • Leads to lower participation in the technique • Available tools are cumbersome for re-planning Result: Conclusions from data are inconclusive or inaccessible 16

17. Challenges • External forces: • Licensors, subcontracts, other suppliers are not process compliant … so significant inputs are left outside the TSP process • Our mistake: large scale change implemented without bulletproofing  led to significant perception that process is burdensome 17

18. Replay: iterate and improve • Tools: developing on the Dashboard • Process: experimentation with SCRUM for early iterative prototyping. TSP for more structured development phase. Working on combining the techniques • Training: adapting PSP training for broader audiences • Staff support: relieving the tool and data manipulation burden from team members 18

19. Looking ahead… • Lessons not just for games • Era of Digital Entertainment • Fusion of technology and creativity • Applicable to movie making, television, online, music - any form of digital media • Talent pool is diverse, and huge • Improvements will have far-reaching benefits 19

20. Our call to action … • We’re broadening the reach of games … new experiences, new audiences - worldwide. • The technology that’s drives this is growing ever more complex • We must also broaden the way our project management methods engage technical and creative talent to achieve greater and sustainable success. 20